We are delighted to announce the winners of the

2025 ‘Together in Verse’ Community Poetry Competition.

Thank you to all who entered and submitted a poem!

Partnering with local poet Laura Ferries of Wordcraft Workshops www.wordcraftworkshops.com, the idea behind the competition was to engage people of all ages in our community to connect to chapters of their lives and share their stories, boosting their mental health, happiness and wellbeing.

It has been a joy to receive poems from people of all walks of life: children in reception class right up to residents in local care homes. Intergenerational connection is exactly what we set out to do with this community poetry competition and we’ve felt privileged to read stories from people’s lives in verse.

Competition Judges:

Laura Ferries – Teacher, travel blogger and poet from Liverpool.

Dan Cullinan – Founder of Give poetry a chance.

Marjorie Hodnett Aylward – teacher, writer and poet (110 years old, shortlisting judge for children’s category).

Our judges were amazed by the quality of submissions and choosing our winners was no easy task.

A special thanks goes to Laura Ferries for making this competition possible through sheer hard work and a passion for poetry, and to Dan Cullinan for dedicating his time to judge the hundreds of poems submitted. Finally we must honour our children’s category shortlisting judge Marjorie Hodnett Aylward, who also submitted an inspirational poem of her own!

Read her poem ‘Rough Seas. Read more about Aunt Marj here – Meet Aunt Marj

The competition awards have been named in honour of ‘Aunt Marj’ for her dedication to verse and teaching over her lifetime and we are grateful to Formby Manor Care Home for sponsoring the awards.

COMPETITION WINNERS

Children’s Category:

First place is awarded to Baraah Al-khorashi with their poem ‘Ageing’.

Our runners up are…

Miley McGinley with their poem ‘Chronophobia’.  .

Esme-Lea Coburn with their poem ‘Memory lane’.

Wordcraft Workshops’ Recognition prize goes to:

Nathaniel MacCoss-Smith for their poem ’Two Old Men.’

Open Category (all ages):

First place is awarded to Angela Cheveau with their poem ‘To the old man on a stick’.

Our runners up are…

Chiwenite Onyekwelu with their poem ‘Exit’.

And Dean Rowlands with their poem ‘The apartment shakes’.

Older Adults residing in Liverpool & Sefton Category (adults aged 50+):

First place is awarded to Linda Cheveau with their poem ‘The Rose’

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Our runners up are…

Jacqueline Woods with their poem ‘Before my time‘.

And Tom McLennan with their poem ‘To teenage children’.

A huge congratulations to everyone who took part and to all of our winning poets.

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